BRATISLAVA

Bratislava was the scene of my first (and hopefully only) bout of food poisoning on this trip. Actually, I don't even think it was food poisoning, even though the food I ate there was completely bizarre, I think it was just a stomach bug. Whatever it was, my second day there was spent lying on my hostel bunk and dashing to the loo frequently. Luckily I fit lots of adventures into my first day!

Bratislava was the crummiest-looking place I've visited, except of course Katowice in Poland but I didn't stay there so it doesn't count. But once I walked around I discovered there was a really nice vibe about it. There were loads of people in cafes and outdoor restaurants, the old centre was buzzing with activiy, there were lots of sculptures and outdoor art in the public space. I just liked it.

I hooked up with a girl from the hostel and we went out for traditional Slovakian food. Well it was probably the most bizarre meal I've had in all my travels. I ordered a pancake with cheese and some dumplings. What I got was, well I don't really know what it was. I wish I could post some photos here for you, perhaps if I move my blog to another site I can do that.

Anyway, I thought the pancakes were going to be made of potato, and I guess it's possible it actually was potato, but it didn't look much like potato, and it tasted rubbery and glutinous and odd. And the pancakes were topped with grated cheese and tartare sauce. Yes, cheese and tartare sauce. The dumplings were even more obscure. After my fabulous experiences with dumplings in Poland I was no longer expecting the Asian-style delicacies, but these ones were also different to the ravioli-type dumplings of Poland. They were made of some type of gluggy, gelatinous substance and looked like solid tubes of pasta about 5cm long. They tasted a bit like Clag glue would if it was solid (or was I the only one who used to eat Clag as a child?). This was a main course dish, but the "dumplings" were topped with crushed poppy seeds and icing sugar. It was a very strange and not entirely pleasant flavour sensation.

After dinner I wandered around the old town looking at the sites. Bratislava is so small that I managed to see everything of note from the tourist map in a couple of hours. Unfortunately there weren't any opera or music concerts being performed that night, I thought that would have been a cool thing to see, so I went back to the hostel to see what the plan was for our evening's entertainment.

We ended up with a diverse group of about 12 people - Norwegians, Finns, Americans, Brits, one Chinese guy and myself - and headed out to a cellar lounge bar with a crappy DJ but nice comfy seats.We were laughing, drinking beer, smoking shisha, then the bar guy came over and gave us a free round of shots. I love free shots.

Free shots were followed by free food: he brought over these massive slabs of bread topped with butter and raw onion and plonked them in front of us, then moments later was back wheeling a little cart with some sausage and onion concoction inside it. He had a long wooden spoon that he scooped into the cart then thrust under everyone's nose until they took what was offered. It really was bizarre.

After that we headed out to another pub for more drinking and I got into a deep discussion with the Finnish guy about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world. It was good fun. The next day, not so fun. I managed to keep my stomach bug at bay long enough to crawl into town in the afternoon and treat myself to a two-hour Thai massage. It was amazing, very possibly the best I've ever had anywhere in the world.

The next day I caught a train to Budapest.